


these happy golden years

by rilla



Series: Dancing On My Own [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5144858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Zayn move out to the suburbs, because apparently that's what adults are supposed to do. Break My Own Heart ficlet. Domestic fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these happy golden years

**Author's Note:**

> So this is set about seven years after the end of [Break My Own Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4168143) after I was prompted 'Zarry, domestic AU, kids, dogs, garden, fluff'. Very self indulgent and fluffy and gross. Title stolen shamelessly from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

They move out to the suburbs eventually, because they have to, because apparently that’s what adults do. St Albans seems nice enough, but it’s no Camden. There won’t be any bustle first thing in the morning outside their front door and there’s no market two minutes down their street. “There also won’t be any knife crime,” Zayn points out the night before they move, when Harry’s having some inadvisable last minute doubts. “And probably no one will have been sick outside our front door during the night. Remember when Jai slipped in it?”

“Jai slips in everything,” Harry says mutinously, because it’s true. Biologically there’s nothing of Harry or Zayn in him but Harry thinks he can hear Zayn’s laugh in his bubbling giggle, and he’s definitely inherited Harry’s inability to balance on things or walk in a straight line, even though he’s only three. “The kids have to move schools.”

“To better schools,” Zayn points out practically.

“They’ll miss their friends.”

“Their friends will visit them,” Zayn says.

“Will they?”

Zayn puts down his book, which is sensible because there’s no way Harry’s going to let him read for more than thirty seconds straight tonight. He takes off his reading glasses and puts them carefully on the floor next to their mattress, which is on the floor because their bedframe has already been taken apart for the move, and then he rolls over and puts an arm over Harry’s chest, fingertips cool and gentle as they brush over Harry’s collarbone. “Yes. Initially. And then they’ll stop, and our kids will have new friends, so they won’t really notice, and everything will be fine in the end.”

“Do you promise?” Harry asks.

“Yes,” Zayn says, and then makes a face that turns into a yawn. “Well, maybe,” he says. “Probably. Can we go to sleep now?”

Harry gazes at him earnestly. “Are we making the right decision?”

Zayn nods, more certain now. “Oh God, babe, yeah. We need a bigger place. They need a garden. This flat’s lovely but it’s half the size of your old one. Jai’s room here’s a fucking hole and we won’t even have to paint his new one.”

“That’s true,” Harry says, because it is: the previous owners of their new house were artists and they had a daughter and a son too, and the third bedroom is pale blue with stripped floorboards and a load of natural light and a pirate ship painted lovingly on the wall. The second bedroom, which will be Charlie’s, is nauseatingly pink. That’ll have to be changed, because she’s more a fan of yellow and purple, but that’s fine. There’s plenty of time. They’re planning to spend a lot of years in their new house, anyway. They’ve been in their current flat for five years, since Charlie was four. Taylor’s got a new job out in Hertfordshire, and she and Ed are uprooting too. They’re doing it together, the four of them, helping each other out. Harry and Zayn took their two year old, who is the most ginger little boy Harry’s ever seen, while they were moving, and tonight Ed and Taylor have Charlie and Jai. Moving just north of London was Taylor’s decision initially, and Harry remembers being faintly surprised when Zayn shrugged thoughtfully and said, “You know, it isn’t a bad idea,” as Harry gabbled concernedly about how the hell they were going to manage shared custody now. It isn’t a bad idea really but it is a bit frightening. Louis and El aren’t living too far away from their new place, right on the outskirts of North London in a small semi they bought after El’s grandma left them enough for a deposit in her will. Harry knows their lives have to change sometime, but he has to admit that he isn’t particularly excited about it actually happening. He just hopes things won't have to change too much.

“You sound so reluctant,” Zayn says, and laughs at him, wriggling up so he can kiss Harry, gentle but firm. “We’re going to have a wicked time. Remember when we moved in here and we got to redo everything? That was fun.”

“It was hell,” Harry says accurately. “It’s like when we think about when Jai was a baby. We’re always like, ‘He was so sweet. We should adopt another one’ when actually we only had two hours of sleep every night for about a year.”

“He _was_ sweet,” Zayn says staunchly. “We _should_ adopt another one.”

“I know,” Harry says. “He was perfect and lovely. We will. Babe, promise me, promise we’ll be okay—”

“I promise,” Zayn says, and sits up properly, pulling off his t-shirt. “Do I have to fuck you into oblivion to make you shut up?”

Harry blinks at him, the gold of his skin against the white sheets, their mattress on the floor in their empty, stripped-bare room. The black of his hair, the new sprinkle of silver at his temples. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over how much he loves him and how much more beautiful he gets with familiarity. “Yes. Absolutely you do,” he says, and Zayn grins at him and settles over him, moving his hips downwarts in slow, grinding circles. 

“Maybe you could fuck me into oblivion instead,” he says thoughtfully, and Harry gasps, reaches out, curls his hands around Zayn’s hips. “Yeah,” he agrees, half spellbound, even now, even after all this time together. “Maybe I could.”

*

Liam and Niall help them move, because of course they do, and Louis shows up to complain about things and stand in the sunshine and direct people, which makes sense as well. Their new house is beautiful. Harry has to admit that now, feeling a thrum of excited anticipation when they pull into their brand new driveway. He’s never had a driveway before. He’s never had a house, or a back garden, or a porch. “We can get a shoe rack to put in the hallway,” he says to Zayn as they go inside, and Zayn laughs at him. “Such lofty aspirations,” he says. “Reach for the stars, babe.”

No one else is there yet. The boys are on their way and the movers haven’t arrived yet, and the kids are with Taylor and Ed, probably waking up and eating toast with too much jam, Charlie drinking her extra sweet milky coffee as a grown up treat, Jai with his beaker of milk because he’s useless in the mornings like Zayn is and keeps spilling it sleepily whenever he’s given a glass. For now it’s just the two of them with their brand new high ceilings and the walls that belong to them and their stripped floorboards and their granite worktops. Harry’s fairly certain he never thought he’d become this sort of person. He’s also fairly certain that now it's happened, he doesn’t mind too much.

Zayn’s humming beside him, vague but tuneful in that pretty way he has, and then he says, “Dance with me,” and grabs Harry’s arms and twists himself in and out of them, excited and bright as Harry tries to keep up with him, a beat behind, and Zayn dodges away, laughing as he moves towards the back windows. “You’re shit.”

“Your mum’s shit,” Harry says with great maturity. “We need to do something about that garden.”

It’s green but overgrown, and Zayn shrugs and leans back so his shoulder’s against Harry’s chest. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I could learn,” Harry says gamely. “We could get some swings and a slide and put them out there.”

“Definitely,” Zayn agrees. “They’d love that. You know what else we could get?”

“A dog?” Harry asks, because he knows Zayn too well. 

Zayn nods fervently, turning around, arms around Harry’s neck. “Yeah. I think the cats would be able to deal with it—”

Their cats, two large rescue tabbies called Meg and Ryan, are currently staying with Eleanor and Louis during the move. Apparently they ‘aren’t normal fucking cats’ and have started decisively consuming Louis’s ties every time Eleanor accidentally leaves the bedroom door open. Harry isn’t sorry. Louis has terrible taste in neckwear. “We could get a little rescue one,” Harry says.

“Or a big rescue one,” Zayn suggests.

“Hmm,” Harry says, fairly certain that Zayn’s going to get his way. He feels like he should put up some show of resistance so they don’t end up adopting a mini Shetland pony or something.

“Yesss,” Zayn chants, and leans in to kiss him. “The kids’ll love it.”

“ _You’ll_ love it.”

“I love you for agreeing even though animals hate you.”

“How dare you, Zayn? Animals love me. I am the animal whisperer.”

Zayn laughs at him, because he’s a bastard. “Sure, babe. We could get two dogs so they don’t get lonely.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harry says, widening his eyes.

“All right, all right. I won’t push my luck.” Zayn pulls away from him, still half laughing. It isn’t long after that that Liam and Niall show up, and Louis isn’t far behind them. They’re helpful, surprisingly so, directing movers and unboxing plates and the kettle and toaster and putting up curtains, Liam carefully reconstructing the purple gauze canopy Charlie’s had over her bed for years in her new room. Niall sorts the TV and Louis makes everyone copious amounts of tea.

Eleanor and Olivia come over late afternoon, with Tommy in his baby carrier on El’s chest. “Is Charlie here?” Olivia demands the second she arrives, her light brown hair wild and flyaway around her face, and immediately starts scowling and sulking when Harry shakes his head.

“But she’ll be here later,” he says helpfully. “Her mummy and Ed are going to drop her off this evening and we’re all going to order some pizza. Won’t that be nice?”

“I suppose so,” she says, looking at Harry like he’s a great disappointment to her, and then Louis comes up to them and pounces on her and turns her upside down over his shoulder and laughs when she screams and giggles and pounds on his back and accidentally kicks him in the face.

Ed and Taylor come over later with the kids in tow. “We can’t really stay,” Taylor reports, “I need to do some marking,” and then pokes around the house for ten minutes before pronouncing it as beautiful, which is an odd relief. Charlie attacks the back garden with Olivia and Jai wanders around upstairs, wide-eyed and overjoyed at the pirate ship in his new room before sticking his thumb in his mouth and demanding that either Zayn or Harry carries him everywhere. “It’s been a long day,” Zayn says when the three of them are in the main bedroom together for a moment’s peace, Jai cradled against his chest. “Apparently they were at the park for hours. And it’s a lot of stairs for little legs, isn’t it, if he’s used to a flat?”

“It is,” Harry says, and tickles the sole of Jai’s foot until he giggles and kicks out gently. Most of the house is done now, to a reasonable extent at least; they need to vacuum dust up, and unpack a sea of boxes, but almost everything they need for the next couple of days is sorted out. Things are good: Liam has ordered maybe too much pizza and the girls are in Charlie’s new room unpacking her things and Jai’s reaching out sleepy arms to Harry. “Hi, fella,” he says to him as he takes him, kissing his forehead, looking down into his dark eyes. “Do you like our new house?” he asks, and Jai nods. “Did Papa tell you we’re going to get a puppy?” Harry asks him, and Jai’s eyes widen like saucers, looking over at Zayn for confirmation.

Zayn looks maybe more delighted than Harry’s ever seen him look before: he looked shy on their wedding day, overwhelmed when they brought Jai home for the first time, and flushed and tearful the first time Charlie called him ‘Dad’. “Yaaay!” he chants happily, raising his fists in gentle jubilation that makes Jai giggle. “Daddy’s letting us get a dog! I think he deserves a big hug for that,” and Jai wraps his arms around Harry’s neck obediently, reaches up to give him a slightly sticky kiss, his face sunny with affection, and Harry will take that. He will absolutely take that.

Charlie skids in then, socked feet on polished floors. “Dads, this house is brilliant,” she says, half breathless, her curls whirling around her face. “Liv found a dead bird in the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden!”

“Are those things connected?” Zayn asks.

“Of course they are,” she says, determinedly making no sense at all. “Come here, baby,” she says to Jai, and gathers him into her arms out of Harry’s, heaving him around so he’s clinging to her like a baby monkey. Harry likes to tell himself that Jai is her favourite brother, more than Taylor and Ed’s boy, and times like this he suspects he might be right as Charlie beams down into Jai’s face and he giggles back at her. “Liam said the pizza’s going to be here in two minutes,” she reports as Jai starts wriggling to get down onto the floor. “Race you?” she says to him as she sets him down, and gives him a head start, rolling her eyes at Harry and Zayn like she’s telling them how generous she’s being before pelting off after him.

“Still think we made the right decision?” Harry asks Zayn then.

“The dead bird’s definitely got me wondering,” he says, and Harry sighs out a darkly amused laugh. Outside the sun’s almost finished setting, and downstairs he can hear the low hum of voices. He smiles across at Zayn and raises his eyebrows. _Isn’t this brilliant?_ he says silently, and Zayn beams back at him. Downstairs there’s a loud yelp that sounds a lot like Charlie, and then Niall yells up the stairs “Don’t worry, she’s fine! Fell over the cat!”

“We should probably get down there,” Zayn says, half reluctant, half smiling.

“It’s okay,” Harry says, moving over to him, wrapping his arms around his waist. There’s a smudge of dirt on Zayn’s cheekbone that makes Harry feels desperately loving, desperately protective, desperately sure that he’ll spend years and years of forever making Zayn as happy as possible, that he’ll get as many dogs as Zayn wants, that they’ll adopt another baby together, that they’ll make their new house a home full of laughter and love. He rubs at the smudge gently with his thumb and Zayn lets him with a smaller smile now, more private, hovering around the corners his mouth. “I think we’ve got a moment to stay here,” he says, and Zayn nods, leans into him, and Harry lets himself feel tired for a moment, aching in a good way from a day of work and weeks of worry that this move wouldn’t go well. Downstairs the doorbell rings and someone shouts “Pizza’s here!” and Harry makes a move to shift away. “We should—”

“No,” Zayn says, smiling up at Harry, slow and electric, the way it always was with them, the way it always will be. He tangles his hand in Harry’s hair and leans in. Harry can’t stop himself looking at his mouth, can’t stop himself moving closer. “You said we had a moment,” Zayn breathes, right before he kisses him. “And I think I’m going to use it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was originally posted [here](http://flomps.tumblr.com/post/132515648986/zarry-domestic-au-kids-dogs-garden-fluff). Feel free to say hi on flomps @ tumblr or foracorkscrew @ twitter!


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